As you all know, I am an avid figure / merchandise collector of all kinds. Be it cards, accessories, phone charms, CD albums, and the list goes on. Since I like my stuff usually the same month it is released and have it shipped to me fast, I chose Hobbysearch over my local dealers. Therefore I can avoid the tax, the high markup, and the average 1-2 month delay. As of now, I always thought Hobbysearch offered the best deals and prices and rewards program, but rival competitor Amiami stepped up their game just recently, and below is my honest and unbiased review of these companies from my personal experiences with them.

I’ve made up an comparison Chart.

The conclusion; If you are looking for the best prices on almost most of the items, your best bet is Amiami, even after the amount of reward points you will still get some of the cheapest prices around. If you are looking for simplicity / great customer support and a bigger catalog, go for hobbysearch. Most of the time Amiami offers great pricing for most of the figure items, but for accessories and other stuff, they are both very similar. In terms of the rewards system, for both systems 1 point = 1 yen, and they can be deducted from your next purchase, but in terms of % return, hobbysearch offers much more points compared to amiami on the same item.

I as of right now orders mainly from HobbySearch, because there are plenty more to choose from and its overall a great online shopping experience. But If you are really just ordering figures, I’d definitely choose amiami because its prices are unbeatable.

I hope this will help out some of you in the future, depending on what your needs. Have you ordered from these guys before? If so which one do you use / prefer? Lemme know down below!

Bluray box featuring the current running TV series, and as an bonus, the Insane BRS figma. Released June this year, 25000 yen.

 This is possibly the coolest figma ever, but does come at an expensive price. So tell me who is thinking of getting this?

Episode 3 was pretty good as usual, obviously not as exciting as episode 2.

Watch Episode 2 here, Watch episode 1 Here.

Download: http://depositfiles.com/files/i8jo80661

Stream: 480p, please be patient, it might take a while to finish loading.

I hope you guys are enjoying this series.

GSC released another great figure from the series, Boku wa tomodachi ga sukunai. this time featuring Yozora. To be released in July, for 6800 Yen.

GSC decided to capture of her key poses in this series, and its pretty adorable. kinda like “i don’t approve of this “, or when she is fighting with “Niku”.

 I think im going to be pre ordering this one, anyone else?

Mikuru is turning 4 years old soon! Well, this site, not the actual Mikuru chan, nobody knows how old she really is, or shes forever young? but first, I’d like to thank all my readers and viewers and stalkers and everybody else for reading my site. As you all know, the 3rd anniversary is coming up very soon in March, but I’d like to make an announcement right now. I have been stacking up on a lot of merchandise here and there for a long time, even though I have not made an anime product / loot review for a long time, the reason is that there are just simply too much things going on etc.

Since you guys have been awesome this whole time, you shall be rewarded with FREE STUFF!

I will be breaking the news and some of the prizes early in this post, so you guys can prepare for the giveaway a little bit earlier.

preliminary giveaway rules / regulations;

-2 part event, giveaway and contest.
-Event will be held in terms of a contest / giveaway form. Your specialty skills might come in handy for this. and better catch up on your anime stuff!
-Guessing random stuff will not be involved in this one.
-The contest part will be art / design related, the winner will be determined by the general public through a poll, not by myself.
-Giveaway lasts ; 2 weeks for the contest part, 1 week for the trivia / other stuff.
-There will be an estimated of 6 winners total at the moment, each will receive 1-2 prizes of great value. Subject to change depending the amount of participants.
*More to be added as we get closer to March.

Prizes: Lots of stuff this year, below is only some of the stuff.
*Grand winner will have the ability to choose from the prize pool.
-Anime key chains / charms (i have a lot of them)
-iTunes cards, PlayStation Network Cards.
-Anime artbook / manga.
-There will be a figure or something of great value as the grand prize, but too early to reveal as of now.

*puke all the rainbows you want now, but the event will be LEGENDARY!

 Giveaway will officially start March 1st, and will last 2 weeks.

Hope you guys enjoyed this news. stay tuned for some more updates and other good stuff.

I really like Ano Natsu, and the story around it. If you haven’t watched it yet, its basically a boy’s encounter with an other world being, they fall in love etc etc etc…. Kinda like Ah my goddess, Onegai Sensei.

Tracklist:

1. sign
2. himawari
3. sign instrumental
4. himawari instrumental

Download; http://www.mediafire.com/?1gffmctjkg4xvvi

great album indeed, I’ll be also uploading the ED album when it comes out. so tell me guys, Belldandy vs Mizuho vs Ichika, who would win, who would you pick? For me Belldandy any day!!!!

I’ve recently discovered a cool freelance manga artist by the name of Mangakaluna, or Luna for short. Upon talking to her about art and manga and of course, anime! I found out she’s drawing for over 11 years, and experienced in both illustration and concept design. I am impressed!

Oh did I mention she also sells original and creative apparel? Shirts inspired by Japan, incorporating Japanese and a sweet style. Each shirt design is created from personal experience and impulse. She currently has 5 designs in various colors for both boys and girls, in different styles. And I think they are absolutely stylish and cool. Casual yet unique. New designs are created often, so please keep checking her twitter / store.

*This is my favorite from her selection, called “Chapter’s End”

 Order yours now at her store, and follow her on twitter!

Watch : EP 1, Ep 3

A few words to describe BRS ep 2; fucked up, wtf, sad, pitiful, holy shit, depressing, awesome, omg.  I dont know how they can put all those together in 1 episode, shit is beyond me.

DOWNLOAD: 720p from WhyNot

http://depositfiles.com/files/fkzmlsgds
http://freakshare.com/files/h4907178/-WhyNot-_Black_Rock_Shooter_-_02_-003F1B39-.mkv.html
http://www.nyaa.eu/?page=torrentinfo&tid=285666 (TORRENT)

480p: http://depositfiles.com/files/a9ztesfx1

STREAM: 480p by myself,227 MB, 480p, please be patient, it might take a bit to load / stream depending on server traffic. (hosted on the same server as mikuru.net) Sorry, NO SKIPPING, so there is no extra load on the server.

Please only watch and not download it directly from my sever, if you would like the 480p MP4 or want to know how I’ve converted this with original quality and subtitles, etc, please leave a comment below to request 480p subbed uploaded, or i can tell you how i did this.

I’ve been playing FF13-2 lately, and after finishing the game through the normal route, I’ve decided to write an unbiased review for this, not as a final fantasy fan nor a square-enix fan, but as your casual gamer. Before I give you all the good, the bad, the wtf, I just want to say overall the game is pretty enjoyable and easy to get through, and not so “linear” as the previous. Having played the previous one my self, I’d say 13-2 is a vast improvement for sure. No doubt about that. I won’t talk about all the game aspects, just the important ones that sticks out in this one.

The Plot: Story picks up 2-3 years later from the final event in FF13 (no spoilers here). The survivors of the event rebuilt town on Gran Pulse and lives with few others, until one night the town gets invaded by monsters appearing from a meteor shower. Serah (the main heroine now) is saved from the ambush by a mysterious youth named Noel (the main hero), who claims to have met Lightning. Accepting his offer of bringing her to her sister, Serah sets off through time and space to find out what has happened to Lightning, while learning more about Noel and the mysterious enemy, Caius.

The Game: Lets start with the combat system. Your party will contain Noel, Serah, moogle (support character that doesn’t join battles but has treasure hunting purposes), and a pet 95% of the game. All (except 1 episode) monsters are now random encounters almost kinda like pokemon, you can choose fight or flee with the help of your moogle friend’s magic clock ability. Overall this was a significant improvement. you will have plenty of chances to gain CP and farm Gils ( to the point you can break the in game economy) before you meet the final boss, and he will be a piece of cake. Map areas now has a lot to be explored, and you won’t unlocked all the maps and the zones the 1st time you beat the boss. but there are definitely a lot of open areas for you to explore. Hidden treasure you need to look for that you will need to help you progress. There’s an easy mode and normal mode, you will be allowed to change it in your settings mid game, if you can’t beat the boss etc. There are certain Live Trigger events, which if you answer with the correct choice you can advance the game or receive bonus items, other times if you answer wrong nothing happens or you wont be able to proceed with the game. There are occasional puzzles you need to solve, but it will be very easy, you will blast through them pretty quick, and they are only about 1% of the entire game, so no worries there.

 Visual improvements? I’d say so, and oh they made lightning less manly now, as far as what I can tell, maybe its the armor.

The Battles; Battle system aside from a pet is pretty much the same, 3 members, ATB gauge, you level your skills and roles with CP easy to max out 4 roles by end game if you grind just a little bit, lvl 99 is the max. Some differences, your you can have up to 3 parts in your party, and rotate them around depending on the paradigms you choose. AI function in this one is pretty ideal / smart in this game, for AI roles such as rav, med it seems pretty effective and can cast the right spells depending on the enemy, single cast / aoe. For roles such as SAB, it is not as smart, because it won’t always use the skills you want, and it will keep trying to cast a spell until it is successfully applied to the target. SEN I found not to be very useful at all in the normal mode, i have almost never used it even against rare boss enemies ( before the final boss). SYN role on the other hand is greatly recommended, mainly to reduce damage from boss enemies, so you can maximize your damage with little healing, SYN/MED/SYN is very fast buffing, and by end boss, I beat it in less than half of the time required to beat him (only a little bit of grinding and some good level monsters).

The Pets: Your pets play an important role / roles in your party, be it healer, ravager, commando, sentinel etc. They can sometimes do a lot of damage and be a great support in fights for sure. Rare monsters can be tamed and leveled up and added to your part. The most important roles to have for a pet is COM and RAV and SYN. they are extremely useful and can hit as much as your characters when leveled up properly. However, don’t worry, it isn’t like pokemon where they get experience in order to level up, they only need materials from monster drops to level, so as long as you have the materials you can get them up to lv 99 in an instant. Don’t spend time trying to farm them, shop will have all the material grades you will ever need by the time you complete the game. so you can farm boss mobs, make massive money, and level them to 99.

The Music: FF13 was superior, FF13-2 had a bunch of WTF soundtracks.

I won’t get too much into the endings, because once you beat the game, you will keep going to hidden areas etc, and unlock more paradox endings to this game, and once you complete the game content and collect all 160 fragments you can unlock a secret ending. Since I said no spoilers here I’d recommend you to go look up some youtube videos later on and see them when you beat the game. It took me 20 hours to beat the game once, but i spent alot of time hunting rare monsters for my party. I’d say average person with minimal grinding, 15-17 hours sounds about right. the first DLC is out right now, featuring lightning and amodar in the Colosseum, so you can battle them.

Overall, id give this game 9.2/10 , major improvement from the last one, story and characters were pretty enjoyable, i had ambiguous feelings though. If you are new to the series, the 2 best FF games are FF VII, and FF X in my honest opinion. So guys, if you haven’t played it, go get it. If you have the game, did you like it? Love it? Hate it? let me know down below.

PS: Don’t get the guide book or the collectors edition, Soundtrack is everywhere online, and all the secrets and hidden info can be gotten with a simple Google search, save your hard earned money, and buy something else instead.

From our good friend at the GSC comes another great preview of another one of their latest products from the series, WORKING!!. This time Mahiru Inami, the guy puncher. Just by looking for the pictures, you’ll think wow this one is really cute and adorable, and indeed it is! She comes with all her accessories and faces to recreate your favorite scenes from the series, And it will be great to add to your collection! Popura is already on pre order status so get her if you havent!

 * this one is definitely my favorite lol!

My favorite from the series is obviously, Yamada, i hope they will show a prototype of her soon! so tell me guys, who is your favorite from the series, and will you be ordering this?